I can’t seem to shake you. It’s been years, and the ghost of our memories haunt me like they want me to feel for you, but I’m left with nothing inside.

I can’t bring myself to love you again. Not because I can’t, not because it’ll break me, but because I don’t want to. You are no longer what fits into my definition of love. You haven’t been for a long time.

You see, I think I kept holding onto you because you gave me everything when I felt like I had nothing. You gave me purpose when I felt like mine had been tossed out to sea.

And now, you give me anger. You give me drunk texts and sordid pleas for help in finding someone to love but you don’t realise that no one I can give you will love you. No one I can give you will love you like I did, because no one can.

I say this with the strongest conviction, because I’ve learnt that every love is different. You see, you haven’t been my only love. You haven’t been the only one I can lean to when I’m in despair. In fact, now, you’re probably the last one.

Each love shapes you. It builds you and breaks you in ways that probably didn’t even exist before you met them. In ways that probably wouldn’t exist if you didn’t let them. The way I loved you, will be miles apart from the way the next girl will. She will take you and make you into a new being, she will give you everything I couldn’t and more.

But you’re impatient. You’re erratic and irrational and you want me one day but the next day you don’t. You refuse to realise that I’m not here for you anymore. More so, I’m not here to be your resident matrimonial guru or easy sleazy booty call, because I can’t. Because I don’t want to.

You ask me for things that bring me pain, say words that resonate in my mind for days to come and then apologise profusely as though it would counteract the ache that runs through my veins.

Some days, you don’t apologise at all.

People wonder why I let you back into my life constantly. I wonder as well. I’m beginning to think that the “soft spot” I have for you is just an excuse for me to walk back into the fleeting happiness you gave me. I can’t keep doing this anymore.

He’s too shy to tell you. He’s got a heart that blazes for every inch of you, but he will never tell you of how his mind is seeped with thoughts of the sweet nectar that you speak, of the waves that ripple through your hair, of the love that he wants but is too afraid to ask for.

He’s never going to tell you. You look through your conversations as if this time he’s going to tell you that he loves you but you know those words will never leave his soul. He’s trapped in his own worst fear, and you solemnly acknowledge that even if you say something, he’d never say anything back.

We’re all too scared to tell the people we love how we feel. We’re always hesitating, as if anything bad could ever come from giving love to people instead of the hate that is prevalent in this dismal world.

Rejection is our only fear, it is the only barrier that keeps us away from bliss and it is tiring. It’s tiring that he won’t tell you how he feels, or that she didn’t kiss you when she had the chance, because what if we stop being friends? What if the whole world finds out?

It’s as though letting people know our happiness is a disaster, but it seems to have become so, and there’s nothing we can do. As though life could end if people found out about the truth, as though there’s a death wish in being passionate.

There is nothing and no one that can discount your feelings except for you, because when will you realise that love is fickle but it’s meant to be, and if you don’t say something now, you probably never will.

It’s never been difficult to be impulsive in anger. Why should it be difficult in brazen, unapologetic and beautiful love?

I’m tired. The world simply is no place for someone that seems to dip into the lows more than highs, that seems to wreck herself and salvage the pieces all in one night.

The world is too strong for people like us, who wither and wilt at the first sign of danger. We’re not ready for what’s about to be thrown at us. I doubt we’d ever be ready.

There is little worth I can bring to my own life. I am stewing in a pot of my own misery, waiting for a day to come by where I’ll get saved.

Yet, I fail to realise that I am my own saving grace, that no knight in shining armour can ever exist and that the world is a deep vat of agony but if I stir long enough, it may change into acceptance.

We’re not always going to be this way, you know?

I think the thicker skin we build, the harder it becomes for people to break our walls. We are nothing but a wall of opinions that we have created by establishing ourselves as slaves to the needs of others.

And I confine myself to these sordid ideals, refusing to own my heart and wear it on my sleeve. Devoid of any emotion.

Haphazard thoughts are the only constant I have left. Maybe, I can understand myself if I think less, talk slower, walk quicker. If I do what they want, I become what they want. I become what I want.

Accepted.

I’m tired. The world is no place for someone who refuses to fit into a version of perfection.

Can you believe it? You’ve reached 16.
You’ve managed to make it to a place you didn’t think you’d be able to reach, and look at you now.

I know the past few years have been insanely difficult for you, even if people don’t acknowledge your struggle.

You’d been immersed into a battle against your biggest weakness and people mistook that for strength.

You’re good at putting a mask on, aren’t you? You’ve been trying to pull it off of your soul lately, I know you’ve been wanting to open your heart, and it’s been a challenge of sorts.

But you’re strong, and you’ll manage. You’ve got years to go, you do.

You need to stop thinking people don’t love you, because you aren’t as terrible as you believe yourself to be.

You need to stop overthinking in general, it only makes you more anxious than you already are, don’t let your brain destroy you, you are more than a simple worry.

You’re not worthless, you are worth it all. You deserve all the happiness that this life has to give you, and you should use that smile of yours to conquer the world.

You don’t need to worry about life anymore.

Promise me you will not conform to the ideals of society. Promise me you will smile until you can’t smile anymore. Promise me you won’t cry over the smallest things. Promise me you will be happy, you will strive for success and you will never give up.

The world is an empty place, left to be lit by people that make you smile with each encounter, that drive you to the brink of insanity with each word, but leave you loving them more than anyone else, each and every time.

You’ve done that to me.

You’ve taken me for a ride I’ll never recover from. I’ve travelled through a symphony of euphoria, and a cacophony of anguish, only to be left wondering what more to expect.

You’ve transformed me, and left me to myself. You’ve broken me, and never looked back. I blame myself for allowing you to infiltrate the walls that protect my heart, yet I blame you for capturing my soul and refusing to return it.

I’m road-rage, a manic disorder of epic proportions, and you accepted it. You saw the wonder in me, the beauty in the panic and the strength in my cries.

But I’ve changed since the day I met you.

You have too, a mesmerising yet heartbreaking realisation that I wake up with everyday. I tell myself that you aren’t any different, but I know that you’ll never be the person you were before me.